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Tag Archives: Chihuahua

Diario has only a short report online so far today on the total number of
murders in May–74, the smallest number in the past 49 months–that is
going back to early 2008. I’m still using the total of 122 for January, so
my figures are a little different than the monthly totals in Diario:
January 122
February 82
March 105
April 108
May 74

for a total of 491 so far in 2012. The average number of people killed in
May is down to 2.3. The yearly average is still at 3.2 people killed each
day.

The total number of homicide victims in the city of Juarez is now 10,576
since January 2008. I’m hoping that a fuller report will be in the paper
later today. molly

**Diario reports 3,111. Other media have reported 3,115. One report in
March 2011 from the Fiscalia said that the actual number was 3,900+. I use
the 3,622 number that was reported by a source in the Chihuahua Fiscalia
and pubished in this Reuters article in December 2011.

Diario has only a short report online so far today on the total number of
murders in May–74, the smallest number in the past 49 months–that is
going back to early 2008. I’m still using the total of 122 for January, so
my figures are a little different than the monthly totals in Diario:
January 122
February 82
March 105
April 108
May 74

for a total of 491 so far in 2012. The average number of people killed in
May is down to 2.3. The yearly average is still at 3.2 people killed each
day.

The total number of homicide victims in the city of Juarez is now 10,576
since January 2008. I’m hoping that a fuller report will be in the paper
later today. molly

**Diario reports 3,111. Other media have reported 3,115. One report in
March 2011 from the Fiscalia said that the actual number was 3,900+. I use
the 3,622 number that was reported by a source in the Chihuahua Fiscalia
and published in this Reuters article in December 2011.

At least 15 people were massacred in an attack on the Bar Colorado in Chihuahua City last night. A followup report says that 2 of the victims were journalists. One used to have a radio program in the city and now was working for the municipal government. Another had a website for reporting news. The actual death toll is now at least 15….

Retired General Mario Arturo Acosta Chaparro was assassinated at a car repair garage in DF. In 2000 he was linked to the Juarez Cartel and tried and sentenced to 16 years. Neither the PGR (Federal Attorney General) nor the Military Attorney General could make the charges stick and so eventually he was exonerated.

“Para 2007 ni la PGR ni la Procuraduría de Justicia Militar pudieron acreditar los nexos de Acosta Chaparro con el narcotráfico, por lo que tuvo que ser exonerado.”
He had also been charged with crimes against humanity from the “dirty war”
in the 1970s. AND he was decorated by Calderon in 2008 as a hero…molly

The man who was killed and burned inside of his house on Thursday night
last week was identified as Eligio Ibarra. In 2011, he was kidnapped and
extorted by a group of federal policemen and he managed to escape and turn
them in to the investigators of the Federal Attorney General. Those police
are said to be in jail. Mr. Ibarra fled the city for his safety and he was
reported to have returned last week in order to testify against the
kidnappers today. The first article includes a statement from human rights
ombudsman, Gustavo de la Rosa, about the chilling effect on other victims
and witnesses to crimes and abuses by government authorities. Late this
afternoon, the state attorney general of Chihuahua issued a statement that
the motive for the murder of Mr. Ibarra may have been robbery…and what’s
more, Mr. Ibarra may have been murdered by someone he knew and that he had eaten dinner with that person on the night of the crime… No, I cannot
make this stuff up. And I am sure there will be more details on an arrest
of this accused killer tomorrow in the paper.

It is worth considering these multiple crimes and the possible motives and
suspects in the murder of Mr. Ibarra. It is also worthwhile to consider the
gang of federal police officers caught in the act of kidnapping and
extortion and compare this reality in the city of Juarez with the
statements of the former DEA head Robert Bonner in his NYTimes oped last
Sunday… He credits the “new” federal police force established under
Calderon as the knights in shining armor in the “drug war.”
-Molly

Ten people were killed in a shootout in the western region of the state of
Chihuahua on Sunday night. There have been a lot of reports lately of
multiple homicides in the city of Chihuahua and other areas in the state.
I have been trying to collect the news articles on Juarez also…though I
haven’t posted in the past 10 days, I believe the killings are averaging
about 3 per day. I will try to catch up soon. molly

Here is a story from the weekend on a report from Centro para la
Investigación y el Desarrollo (CIDAC), entitled: Ocho delitos primero.
The report compares homicide rates and concludes that the rate of
homicide in the state of Chihuahua, approximately 130 per 100,000 far
surpasses the murder rate from Colombia during the worst years of the
violence in that country in the 1990s (about 80 per 100,000). Of
course, the rate in the city of Juarez is even higher than for the
state, currently about 160 per 100,000…down from a high of about 275
in 2010. The study also finds that Chihuahua is one of the Mexican
states which has also seen a huge increase in other high-impact crimes
such as extortion and kidnapping.